Graceful sapphire rivers are veins in a land that breathes and coughs us out as parasites. When the Earth is sick of malingering, pontificating bullshit, what then? The fish weave designs as they trace their way down river, ghosts of evolutions past. The sun, overly enamored of me, coalesces on my horrified skin, and I age like a campaign promise. Across the river banks, wolves teach their young the art of evasion. I will be removed by an immune system older than thought.

Clouds swivel and swim over me in ethereal shades of maybe and wish. The gentle sea glows pool blue. The birds on the telephone wires tap dance. Secrets here grow many fruits. I tend orchards in a black silk slip and the rain washes me like a baptism every day at noon. Sea monsters prowl my bathtub. Dolphins jump from the dirty side of my sink to the clean. This island tells scary stories in the light, and my sweat is green with fear.

I got drunk at the DMV with John Berryman, and we toasted to unkempt memory until the police threw us out on the murky street and the rats laughed. The only license I have now is license to kill. Houseflies mostly. I printed the certificate myself. Beneath a red umbrella, a demon watches us enviously – able to enjoy others carousing but never able to carouse himself. Berryman looks at me with a poem in his eyes and my mind records the wine dark music of his shredded sanity against the petrified blue screaming of my own.

Silky pink wishes dab blush on my cheeks. Prettiness ages like fine wine. I cannot drink. Water clasps my throat like a necklace, and I remember running on the beach in nothing but my frightened girlhood and a few inches of fabric I called a bikini, darting like daylight away from the dark and desolate vultures who stalked me. In my mind, that girl strolls now. The sea takes a little over her as she lolls by the ravenous shore, but the vultures fear her and keep their distance. Layered in comfort and rest, she holds a pink parasol to keep the aging at a steady rate.

Excellent tornadoes rip through this city of ruby blood and ivory bone. With precision, they cut down every den of vice including mine. The ravens used to visit me daily, bringing their gifts of scrap metal and creepy stories. The city is toxic now, like a lover that beats you and you stay because there is nowhere else for you to inhabit. The world is inhospitable and layered with the soot of all the good things the people have burned. The ravens do not come – choosing to eat the popcorn God throws for them as they watch Gomorrah burn.

Strolling hand in hand with my sea and vegan leather scented lover, I feel the sea’s jealousy. But many times I envied the sea for having my man, and more than once I dreamed she drowned me. My ghosts are all made of swirling salt water that tastes like tears. Haunted by a fear that threatens to overwhelm me and silence me, I thrash in my sleep on long nights. But tonight my lover and I dine on the pier and he gives me crab dip and hush puppies.